Holy Textures

Mark 8:27-38

"Poor old Peter. In verse 30, he calls Jesus, the Messiah. Three short verses later, Jesus is calling Peter, 'Satan.'"

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 19, Ordinary Time 24
Sunday Between September 11 and September 17 Inclusive 
15th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is an ideal passage for pondering the transition from summer to fall. The season of rest and recreation, of planting and tending is giving way to season of harvesting. Within each year, and within each lifetime, comes those moments when all that is past becomes the prologue for what is to come. (To paraphrase Wm. Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1.)

The questions that arise in this passage are:

• What have we learned thus far from our travels with Jesus?
• Who is Jesus - really?
• What has all this prepared us for?
• And just what is it that lies ahead?
• What will be required us to actually produce the fruit from all this preparation?
• Are we ready for what lies ahead?

Mark 7:24-37

"The racial and religious differences between Jesus and the Gentile woman are unchanged. But what has changed is that courage and caring for a daughter have been shown to be acceptable to God - even when they come from a Gentile heart; even when they come from a woman's heart; even when they come from the heart of a woman who has publically shamed herself by being out alone, by speaking to a man, and by daring to speak back to a man."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 18, Ordinary Time 23
Sunday Between September 4 and September 10 Inclusive
14th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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In this week's lesson, Jesus is going to be challenged to practice what he preaches.

Last week, Jesus had successfully defended his disciples from the criticism by the Judean elite that they were not following "the tradition of the elders" when they ate without washing their hands.

His teaching:

There is nothing that goes into a person from the outside which can make them ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that makes them unclean.
For from the inside, from a person's heart, come all the evil ideas which lead them to do immoral things.
Mark 7:15, 21 (Good News Bible)

radically altered two strict social boundaries.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

"The struggle that every community in every age - including our own - faces is how can the 'tradition of the elders,' which has given us our identity, now be changed so that what was good in it - the desire live according to the will of God - can actually be expressed in our current circumstances."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 17, Ordinary Time 22
Sunday Between August 28 and September 3 Inclusive 
13th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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The lectionary ends its 5 weeks of dabbling in John and returns to Mark. No murmurs from me about this.

Once again Malina and Rohrbaugh provide helpful background on this passage. (Pages 174-176, see footnote below.)

At one level, the controversy here is between the Judean elite who were 5% of the population, and everyone else. The elites lived in towns and cities and had access, time, and money for the water needed to follow their interpretation of the washing required to follow the Torah.

The "tradition of the elders" is NOT the teaching of Moses as found in the Bible. It is the practice of the Judean elite which they are seeking to impose as THE one and only correct practice. And, as noted, the amount of water, time and money to follow those practices was beyond the reach of most people. And so most people were seen by the elites as unclean.

John 6:56-69

"John wants us to hear the word, 'abide,' as being as viscerally real as 'flesh' and 'blood.' And to hear the words, 'flesh' and 'blood,' as dynamically real as 'abide.'"

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 16, Ordinary Time 21
Sunday Between August 21 and August 27 Inclusive 
12th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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This is the last of 5 weeks devoted to Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. Beginning with the sign of the feeding of 5,000 men plus an unknown number of women and children, the whole Chapter has used bread as an extended metaphor to describe both: what it is that Jesus is offering; and, what is the relationship Jesus wants us to have with him - and thereby also with the One who abides in him.

This lesson repeats Verses 56-58 from last week. See my notes there about why this teaching is difficult.

John 6:51-58

"The crowd has looked at Jesus through the distorted lens of their longing and seen 'king.' Jesus is asking us to reverse our gaze. To look through the lens of himself at our longing."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 15, Ordinary Time 20
Sunday Between August 14 and August 20 Inclusive 
11th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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You gotta love those Lectionary gals and guys. Here we are at the height of BBQ season (at least those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), and they give us this text about eating Jesus' flesh and blood.

A text that has been at the centre of 2,000 years of controversy and division among the followers of Jesus as they have tried to faithfully understand just what they are chewing and sipping at the Eucharist / Holy Communion / Lord's Supper.

So instead of preparing a sermon appropriate for relaxed summer shorts and sandals we're gonna have to put on our heavy duty work boots and hard hats.

John 6:35, 41-51

"But the whole point of this passage is that while earthly bread nourishes earthly life (all of which will pass away), Jesus has been sent so that we might come / see / hear / learn / believe / eat the bread from heaven / the true bread that gives eternal life."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 14, Ordinary Time 19
Sunday Between August 7 and August 13 Inclusive 
10th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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With this lesson, we begin with the first of the seven great "I AM" statements in John:
  I am the bread of life
     Verse 35

And we also begin the first of three weeks of attempting to faithfully decipher, understand, make sense of, and find the Good News in the last 28 verses of this Chapter 6.

As always with John, the key is to NOT get lost in the repetition of words and phrases; but rather to use them like bread crumbs left to mark a clear path through a dark wood. The dark wood is the dull imagination of our earthly flesh and blood that is perishable. The clear path is Jesus who reveals life that is imperishable.

John 6:24-35

"The challenge here is to 'see' which things perish and which things endure, and to embed ourselves - to abide in, to focus our living on - the things that endure. Because only the things that endure truly satisfy, and only the things that endure bring true life."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 13, Ordinary Time 18
Sunday Between July 31 and August 6 Inclusive 
9th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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As always with John, it is important to remember that John is not writing a daily diary - "What I did with Jesus today" - nor a historical biography - "Jesus: The Man, His Times, His Achievements."

John is writing at the end of his life, at the end of the first century (nearly 70 years after Jesus' execution and resurrection), at a time when the early Christian communities are under severe persecution from the Romans, and have lost all connections with their original Jewish roots. He is NOT writing to "the general public." He is writing to a threatened, small, inner group, who have no first-hand memory or experience of Jesus or of being Jewish. Their physical - and more importantly - their eternal lives are at stake. They need to "see" Jesus. They need to be embedded in Jesus, abiding in Jesus, so that they can withstand the fear and pain of Roman arrest, torture, and bloody executions.

John 6:1-21

"These stories try to open our eyes, hearts and minds to see the hidden truth that is plain sight. They are trying to train us so that we too can SEE where is the bread of life. ... So that we can SEE Jesus and welcome him into our frail boats on the stormy sea."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 12, Ordinary Time 17
Sunday Between July 24 and July 30 Inclusive 
8th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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Continuing my vow not to rant about the illogical choices the designers of the Lectionary made that present such challenges for preachers, I'll not comment on the sudden switch from Mark to John for 5 Sundays, as though the two were inter-changeable, which they're not; nor will I comment on trying to preach on a single lesson that contains two stories, each of which deserves its own reflection.

As always, Malina and Rohrbaugh (see link at bottom) come to our rescue with useful background.

Even if we hadn't been told already, by Verse 2 our ears should suddenly start tingling with alarms that we have switched from Mark to John. The trigger for this is the word "signs."

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

"Try posting this note on your office door / Facebook / Twitter / blog / voice mail / memo to your Board:
  'Gone to the fields to be lovely.
  Be back when I'm through with blooming.'
And say a grateful, gleeful prayer of thanks all the while for the poetry of Lynn Ungar."

Year B, Season of Pentecost
Proper 11, Ordinary Time 16
Sunday Between July 17 and July 23 Inclusive
7th Sunday After Pentecost 2009

Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this note.

I'm tempted to rant once again about the unhelpful choices - from a preacher's point of view - of the Revised Common Lectionary. Why are the verses 6:30-34 not part of the reading two weeks ago as they are the conclusion of that story? And why are we skipping over the wonderful stories of the feeding of the 5,000 (Verses 35-44), and of Jesus walking on water (Verses 45-52)? Sigh.

Verses 30-32 are a wonderful lesson for the start of the summer season here in the Northern Hemisphere. Especially Jesus' invitation in Verse 31:
  Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.

Thank you Jesus.